


Make it right

by thyandra



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Beheading, Survivor Guilt, Violence, angsty towards the end, basically I tried to transition them into a healthier relationship, brief mention of mutsurie, mentions of guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4581519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thyandra/pseuds/thyandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are like a puzzle in the way they fit in the tiny crevices and asperities of one another’s personality with extreme ease as if they know exactly where the other draws their line and never have to even cross it to feel it in their own skin as an outstretching of their own self. They are opposites, but that only adds to their nature. They are bound to attract to one another, and they are glad to do just that.</p>
<p>Or: the one in which Hide is an investigator from Division II and his partner in the upcoming investigation is a shadow from his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make it right

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my [tumblr](http://bloodycarnations.tumblr.com/) for Hidekaneweek day 5 - Reunion.  
> Unbeta'd.  
> It would be awesome if you could point out to me the grammar mistakes and the typos I'm sure are there, so watch out!  
> Feedback as well as constructive criticism are greatly appreciated!

When Akira summons him in her office to talk about the oncoming investigation, Haise feels that something’s off. He doesn’t know what it is, exactly, that gives him that impression. The collected, almost distant way his superior greets him after he politely knocks on her door seem to give off that idea, too, but he decides not to act upon it.  _It’s for the best_ , he thinks,  _and it’s not like I can exactly pinpoint it myself_.

So he takes a seat in front of her and waits expectantly for her to start talking.

She doesn’t look him in the face, he notices, as she slids a manila folder in front of him. “We are to start the investigation on the “Headless” in a week starting from tomorrow. They’re an SS rated ghoul who’s been lurking in the 20th ward before coming to this one,” she says, voice even as usual.

He peeks at the file, hesitating for a second, then Akira starts giving the details as he rapidly flips the pages, searching for the more practical data he’ll need for the investigation.

“Orders are we cooperate with an intel squad from Division II.”  
That gets his attention and he slowly raises his gaze to his mentor.

“Division II?” he repeats, making it sound like a question without meaning to. Akira’s gaze hardens, if only a little bit, at his comeback.  _For a small operation like this one?_ , he doesn’t say.

The uneasiness he feels steadily growing in his stomach tells him there’s more to it than what she’s allowed to tell. He straightens in his seat, knowing that whatever she’s going to say next she won’t allow any more objections.

“You’ll meet their squad leader tomorrow at ten. Make sure everyone in your squad makes it on time for the meeting this time. We can’t afford anyone else from the higher ups looking down on us.”

He nods stiffly his  _yes ma'am_ , knowing a scolding when he hears one. Then he promptly stands up to make his leave, but he’s stopped by Akira’s voice once again.

“Ah, Haise,” she starts as an afterthought then stops abruptly, seeming at a loss for words. He looks at her curiously, briefly noting that this is the first time he’s seen her through her though façade for some reason, and he’d be lying to himself if he said that it's making him worry. He’ll have to ask her what’s so clearly bothering her, but now it’s not a good time, he decides. Maybe in front of a cup of curry rice she’d soften just that little bit that’ll prevent her from punching him in the guts just for asking.

Akira clears her throat but her voice comes out hoarse anyway as she finally says: “Don’t bother with formal clothing. They won’t care.”

She’s facing the window, but Haise notices anyway that her profile looks a bit sad. He nods again, then leaves feeling oddly empty.

  
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The next day finds him forgetting about his superior’s advice as he stares pensively at his wardrobe. He finally opts for his favorites striped black pants and a plain shirt, before hastily having a shower and gingerly going downstairs to cook breakfast for the kids. It’s slightly early, but he knows from experience that waking up Saiko will require a lot of time and he promised Akira he would try his best to make an impression.

He wouldn’t say that he’s nervous, but when he cracks the third egg out of the pan and on the kitchen counter, he decides it’s better if he leaves it be and keeps it to something simple, for the sake of the eggs and his own cleaning duties later on in the day. He turns the flame off and sighs, clearing the mess he’s made, and that’s when his enhanced sense of hearing tells him that he’s been caught red handed. His voice catches a little in his throat as he greets a sleepy Mutsuki, subtly wiping his palms on his tailored pants. He hopes the other boy hasn’t noticed his superior’s nervousness. He wouldn’t want for the kids to worry unnecessarily. That would make four more than necessary.

If he’d caught on to his false cheeriness, he’s glad that Tooru doesn’t say anything about it, and he gratefully accept the other boy’s offer to take his place behind the stoveand spare the other eggs a horrible fate. He goes upstairs to wake the others and mentally prepares himself not to false step again. Everything’s going to be fine, he chides himself for his queasiness, but the image of Akira’s melancholic expression flashes briefly before his eyes, and he knows he’s just fooling himself.

 

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Turns out Urie was already up and kicking -literally, he was already training- when he’d knocked on his door, and Shirazu and Saiko had fallen asleep on the couch playing some racing game of hers, so the promise of a hot shower and food in their bellies was enough to shake them from the very uncomfortable position they’d seemingly fallen asleep into. Haise had felt a stab of sympathy as he saw them groggily get up on stiff limbs. One too many nights reading a novel on that very same trap of a couch had him knowing the symptoms very well.

He sighs, slipping a loose coin in the machine and patiently waiting for it to fill his order.

The smell of badly brewed coffee fills his nostrils and he stops himself from wincing. That’ll do, he mentally scolds his past self for not feeling like brewing a cup himself that very morning, too nervous to bet that it would stay down.

The machine beeps to signal the awful coffee’s ready, and he stretches to grab it. He’s too occupied with drinking its boiling hot caffeinated bliss in large gulps to notice  the rolling sound of his change being ejected by the machine, and he lets it fall to the ground.

Someone leans over him and collects it for him, handing it back and chirping a overly-bright for the cloudy morning:

“Whoa man, you’d better make sure to get that change! It’s enough for another cup of this glorious mud they still have the courage to call coffee.”

Haise mentally agrees, before his taste buds protest for the sudden hot aggression and decide that enough is enough.

“Thanks,” he distractedly mutters to the stranger. He pockets the coin and glares betrayal at his still warm coffee, deciding against downingit as he’d previously planned. He dumps it in the near trashcan as Shirazu yells his name from the other end of the corridor, making everyone turn around and glare at him.

He hears someone giggle happily besides him, but he doesn’t pay it much attention.

 

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The room’s still empty, besides Akira, when the Quinx enter it and take their seats. Shirazu is muttering threats to a very indifferent and  slumbering Saiko, and Haise knows a lost case when he lives with one, so he lets it be and focuses on the very same manila folder Akira showed him the day prior. He offhandedly flips its pages even though he knows them well by now, a whole afternoon of anticipated tension behind him.

Akira isn’t watching him and she’s not even sending death glares at the kids, and that’s strange in itself, if slightly less than Mutsuki effectively succeeding in shutting them up for the time being, while Urie keeps looking pained as always while managing to look excited at the prospect of working with Division II at the same time. Haise briefly wonders if he should feel honored too, instead of cornered. What if this is just a test meant for him? What if he doesn’t pass it?

His thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of their colleagues and Haise feels at a loss for words.

The first one who enters the room is Washuu Matsuri, he knows him well even though he’s actually never met him in person, but the second–

He feels the overwhelming impulse to cry and laugh and pull at his own hair and scream and never wake up anymore as his gaze sets on a very familiar mop of blond hair with brown roots, and he can’t help but look in the stranger’s eyes the moment their gazes locks and suddenly the world’s spinning too fast and there’s ringing in his ears and the stranger is smiling warmly at him, yes  _at him,_  before averting his gaze and greeting the others, and Haise swears he’s going mad, the voice in his head has finally gotten the best of him except He’s dead silent this time, because  _he doesn’t know this man_  but he feels like the very thought is foreign in itself it’s wrong  _wrongwrongwrong_  and his eyes hurt but it’s not from the tears he feels pricklingbehind his eyelids and it hurts  _hurts hurts_  and the headache is killing him and he can’t–

He excuses himself to the restroom before they can sit and promptly falls on his knees as the door closes behind him.

_What the heck was that for?_

The voice in his head remains dead silent.

 

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He manages to keep his cool during the rest of the meeting, except that very awkward and  _very weird_  time the blond investigator was introducing himself and Haise had blurted out his first name for him before he had the chance to say it himself, and then he’d promptly averted his gaze and nervously fiddled with the pen in his trembling hand because what the hell, his name wasn’t on the file, how could I have guessed correctly just like that?

_That’s because it wasn’t a guess_ , doesn’t say The Voice in his head, and Haise keeps silent until the meeting’s over, wishing with all his might he could be at home right now and under a very cold shower. This must be his overworked mind playing tricks on him, he decides, and he doesn’t notice the stranger’s brown eyes on him for the rest of the meeting.

 

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He checks his watch as he waits for Saiko to come back from the vending machine she’d spotted on the way home.

He’s mentally making a shopping list for his later visit at the local grocery store as Shirazu approaches him tentatively and awkwardly says, “is everything alright, Sassan? You looked a little out of it.”

He’s taken out of his stupor with the force of a slap. So much for acting normally and not making the kids worry, he chides himself. He nods an affirmative as his hand flies to distractedly brush his chin. “Just got something on my mind, is all,” he replies, trying and managing to keep the uncertainty out of his tone. Shirazu looks relieved, not even doubting his superior’s honesty, and Haise feels a little guilty, if only for abusing the other’s naivety.  _It’s really nothing I should worry about_ , he mentally adds to himself.

 

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_Nagachika Hideyoshi, Nagachika Hideyoshi_ , he mutters under his breath as he types the name in his laptop that evening, and comes away clean.

He sighs, leaning back in his chair.

He should’ve known better than expecting to find anything on classified information such as the ones which probably concerned the blond in the CCG archive. He massages his eyelids, taking off his glasses. At least with his Rank 1 pass-code, that is.

The Voice in his head laughs at him and he wonders why He’s being so uncharacteristically quiet as of late.

 

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The next day he decides to take the matters at hand and face the blond, but is taken off guard when the other decides to beat him to the punch.

He’s casually leaning on his office’s door as Haise spots him, and he straightens up and throws his way a bright, “hey man, wanna grab a real coffee before all the never ending paperwork has to be taken care of?”

Haise finds himself smiling before he knows it, and gladly accepts.

They head out of the building in silence and Haise can’t help but sneak one or two quick glances at his companion. Ok, maybe more like seven or eight. If he notices the other’s behavior, Nagachika doesn’t seem bothered by it, his hand shoved deep down his coat pocket as he walks besidehim.

Haise clears his throat and tries for a conversation starter.

“Err, are you really that cold?” he asks, nodding to the other’s man head, knowing he’s being lame. The blond just blinks at him and then raises a hand at his colorful beanie. He stretches one of the hanging pompons with a toothy grin.

Now Haise understands what Akira meant when she said he wouldn’t mind a less formal clothing. His companion is the living advertisement for casual wearing. Haise smiles. Well, he’s sure those bright pink sneakersclash horrifically with any common sense, not to mention with the formal attire required by the investigator’s bureau. That and the casual way in which he blatantly refuses to wear a tie and lets the collar of his shirt open, exposing his collarbones. Not very formal at all, he thinks. That much for dressing up the day before. That reminds him, he still has to ask Akira about this whole ordeal.

“Nah, I just like the hat,” the blond says, amusement and a tinge of mischievousness in his chipper tone.

“Shame, I thought bringing it up could be a good  _ice-breaker_ ”, the lower-grade investigator replies lightheartedly, and he can swear he sees the other man’s grin widen, if only a bit.

“That’s some  _nice_  bad taste in puns we have here, buddy,” he says, and Haise’s face falls a little, but then he adds, “good thing you’ll be working with me, we’ll have time to fix it.”

It all goes downhill from there, and Haise feels every anxiety he ever anticipated slowly dissipating in the other man’s calming aura. He feels at ease just by speaking with him, Haise notices, and he wonders how Nagachika-san manages to pull that off as he smiles another one of his bright smiles in his coffee later on in that morning.

 

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Coffee with Hide has become a regular occurrence over the next few mornings, and he has grown so much on Haisethat one day he greets him distractedly and then wonders when exactly he’s dropped all pretenses of formality and started calling him by his first name as Hide so many times had begged him.

The intimacy just feels natural as so very few things do in his life, so Haise stops asking himself why and when and revelsin the feeling of belonging for what feels like the very first time. He has the kids, sure, and Akira and Arima are like parents to him too, but this feels different in a way he’s never known and known all along at the same time, in a corner of his mind he so desperately tried to shut off during his not so rare moments of fragility. He would never admit, not especially to himself, how much the crude and taunting words of his other self had hit home in the past, and stung like knives bathed in poison, sweet, deadly poison like the one the snake had bitten on Cleopatra’s breasts in that one tragedy.

He’s never realized up to this point how lonely he was. He never thought he missed a friend in his life until one came along out of nowhere and planted himself in the growing hollowness of the hole in his chest.

Yes, he met Hide only a week ago, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it with the way the blond’s laughter has quickly caught on with Haise’s own and now erupts from his lips the moment Haise’s own silence is stretching too much, and it never feels forced or strained, just natural. They are like a puzzle in the way they fit in the tiny crevicesand asperities of one another’s personality with extreme ease as if they know exactly where the other draws their line and never have to even cross it to feel it in their own skin as an outstretching of their own self. They are opposites, but that only adds to their nature. They are bound to attract to one another, and they are glad to do just that.

 

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Working with Hide is just as hanging out with him, except they keep the honorifics in place, especially when they’re under Matsuri unrelentingand unsympathetic glare, and there’s a lot more chaos in the background, because of course the kids are there, too.

Nevertheless, they work together as if they were always meant to, and the chemistry between them starts to show.

“So I was thinking that this ghoul has a thing for heads, right?” Hide says, and he doesn’t wait to get the obvious affirmative reply,as it is only a rhetoric question, "they throw away the rest. That’s a very specific part of one’s body, I daresay.”

Shirazu’s watching him intently, waiting for his superior to spill the beans, already.

“What if he’s searching for someone’s in particular?” Haise interrupts, following his train of thoughts.

“But why killing them if they’re not the one they’re looking for, then?” objects Shirazu.

“Good point,” says Haise, deflating a bit and then turning to squint at the photos in his file for the umpteenth time.

“Maybe they don’t have a way to know if the victim is their real target until they kill them,” Hide throws inoffhandedly with a frown, not wanting to discard the possibility before even trying to dig into it. He trusts is own intuition and feels as if they’re close to the key to improvement, if only a breath away. Haise notices his reluctance to let the topic drop and tries again.

“As in, a birthmark or something like that?” he throws in, unsure.

“Maybe they don’t really know what their type is until they scrambletheir insides,” unhelpfully adds Shirazu.

Hide plops down in his chair, tired of walking in circles in his jitterydetective-mode. Haise pats his arm in a reassuring way as Hide lets out a frustrated groan. How unprofessional, Haise mouths to him sneakily, and Hide just digs his head further in his arms, messing his already untamed hair.

Urie comes in with their coffees right then, grumbling that it was Saiko’s turn (who was still peacefully dozing off in a corner) to make the coffee run, and that he had to wait all the way to the never-ending queue to get them. “At least they’re still warm,” says Mutsuki with a smile that tells an unspoken “try to play nice, if only for a second” and Urie blatantly ignores him.

Haise sighs and rubs his eyes tiredly, noting that as of late his eyes are hurting more than normal. Maybe he should make an appointment with a doctor soon.

Then it strikes him as he remembers Hide’s words from earlier: Maybe they don’t have a way to know if the victim is their real target until they kill them.

He hastily stands up from his chair and looks at his partner with hope filling his gray eyes, “ _What if our ghoul is blind_?”

 

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“So,” Hide asks offhandedly as he takes a sip from his coffee, his donut forgotten on his plate. “What’s our next move now that we have an opening?”

Haise stares at him vacantly for a few seconds, before he quietly replies.

“I thought that you guys from the intel squad were the brains and puppeteers behind the scenes.”

“And we are,” the blond agrees without missing a beat, “that’s why I’m asking. Work on the field is not really my area of competence. That’s for the more buff guys out there, I’m out,” he grins. “ _‘Sides_ , that one of yours was really great of an intuition, buddy. If I didn’t have your abs right in front of me I’d say you’re intel material yourself.”

Haise is taken off-guard by the comment and sputters on his coffee before quickly recollecting himself in favor of a very unimpressed expression.

“You’re hitting on me, officer?” he asks, a small smile creeping up the façade of stoicism.

“I could never hit  _you_ , that’s kinda the whole point” remarks Hide, his grin widening, and Haise admits defeat in front of his superior’s wits, but he doesn’t miss the sliver of melancholy he detects in his companion’s eyes, and he wonders if there’s an undertone that he’s missing there.

 

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It’s day 20 since the operation on Headless has started, and the victim count has raised to six, two of which were barely teenagers. Haise feels a knot of uneasiness planting itself in his stomach and works night and day, disregarding his own sleep schedule in order to come up with a more concrete way to effectively track down this ghoul. Everyday they’re free to walk out there is a potential new victim on a CCG file.

Haise doesn’t want to resort to that, not even if that would translate to more information on their side about them. Sometimes it feels like that’s exactly Washuu Matsuri’s plan, and it makes him sick to his stomach only thinking about that possibility. The older investigator has a name for coldness and bloodshed after all, and even though Haise doesn’t know how much of that is just plain rumor on ghoul’s side and how much is just envy on lower grade investigator’s side, he doesn’t want to risk some other innocent’s life for it.

He can stand some night without sleep if that means more openings on their case.

Except it doesn’t and sleep exhaustion starts to wear on himand Hide notices, taking the time to check on him often and thinning outhis paperwork for him by sneaking into his office and taking a few of his files with him as Haise goes for a coffee run.

Heck, it wouldn’t surprise Haise if Hide had known all along he was pulling all-nighters and just known better than dissuading him.

Haise has resorted to the shitty coffee machine near the meetings’ office again after all, and three days after meeting Hide he could already tell his friend was very sharp and perceptive, even though he likes to pretend he isn’t.

Haise sighs and waits for the upcoming scolding.

Except it never comes.

That’s something about Hide he’s come to learn the longer he’s spent time with him: he never pushes others to do what he thinks they should, even when he knows the outcome will probably be grim.

That’s what happened when Hide didn’t tell Mutsuki not to force his affection on Urie before he was ready to accept his own for the other boy.

That’s what’s happening right now too, with Haise locking himself in his room because there it is, the seventh victim, and she was very young too.

Haise knows he’s making the kids worry and he’s not being productive in that very moment he needs to be, but he can’t help himself. Finally the weight of nearly a month of working his head off this case is crushing on his shoulders and Haise doesn’t feel like going outside and having to deal with the consequences of his own misjudgment.

If he’d taken things one at a time and if he hadn’t overworked himself up to that point maybe he would have been up and kicking enough to actually look at the case with a clear mind and -hopefully- more ideas.

Now it’s too late and a  seventeen years old girl would be glaring at him through her lidded eyes in the photo on his file, if only the head had been with the rest of her body at the crime scene.

 

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The next day he’s still locking himself up in his own room someone slips a tiny rectangle of paper under his door, knocks softly and then leaves before Haise even has the chance to look up from where he’s lying curled up in a fetal position on his bed.

He doesn’t get up to see what it is until he finds the courage to exit his room again to go to work (before a very angry Akira storms in and kicks down the door. She’s done it before).

It’s a message from Hide. There’s no signature, only four hastily scribbled words, and Haise knows that he’s the only one who’d bother to let him know despite his clear state of numbness and isolation.

It says: “we’ve found Headless’ name”

 

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“You wouldn’t believe a ghoul has a regular medical record with the whole rc cells thing, right? Well,  _he does_ , apparently. He’s even listed in the medical care insurance system. How crazy is that? We were stupid not to check on that earlier,” Hide tells him, excitement tinging his tone.

Haise can only feel guilt, though. Hide once again notices and pales a bit.

“Oh shit– I didn’t mean for it to sound insensitive or anything,  I know there are… err… exceptions'n all…” he scratches his cheek, trailing off, seemingly pondering whether to mention something else or not.

“It’s fine,” assures Haise, not knowing when the other one caught up on him not being human even though they didn’t ever spend time together at lunchtime.  It was probably written in his file somewhere, he thinks. “That’s not it, Hide,” he says instead, because as long as Hide’s known all along and never acted like it was a burden on their friendship it’s fine by him,  really, he only wishes for him to never leave him and–  _Stop that._  You’re being selfish again.

“We could’ve saved that girl,” he says instead in a very small voice, not even sure if the other one’s heard him.

Of course he has.

“Hey. Look at me.”

He doesn’t raise his eyes.

“I said look at me, Haise.”

When he doesn’t,  he’s surprised to find Hide’s fingers slowly brushing his chin and doing it for him. He’s not by any means ready for what he finds in those familiar brown orbs and Haise feels overwhelmed as tears start to prickle in his eyes.

“It wasn’t your fault she died, Haise. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but this asshole’s, Sakurai Ichiro.”

Haise still looks unconvinced.

“She didn’t die. She was  _murdered_ ,” he corrects him. The words feel heavy in his throat.

Brown eyes meet gray and Haise is startled by the raw anger and hurt he reads in the blond’s ones. Hide has never been this open with his feelings, he never let Haise look this far. He’s good at reading people, but he never returns the favor.

“One more reason to catch this asshole,” Hide says, then lets go of him. “you should stop taking it this hard on yourself all the time, you know,” he adds as an afterthought, voice raw from unspoken truths and heavy lies. “I though you trusted us. I hoped you trusted  _me_.”

Haise hates how broken that last one confession sounds, and swallows bile.

“ _You’re not any less human than we are after all_ ,” Hide says, refusing to look at him.

Haise feels his heart break and he chokes down his sobs without even knowing why as his knees give out and the world spins together with the cry he hears inside his head, awoken after a long, deadly silence.

He’s never, never been alone.

No one ever hated him for what he was.

Only himself.

 

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Investigations come surprisingly easy after that as Haise later discovers that knowing a ghoul’s name can be very useful for tracking them down. They’ve successfully managed to find out the area in which he hunts, and the operation’s planned in three days from now.

Hide would be lying if he said that he wasn’t nervous.

There’s a good reason if he never applied for field investigations, and it’s not his physical strength as he’d previously joked. It’s something far more twisted.

He wonders what Haise would think about him, if he were to find out.

And if he’ll be able to forgive himself.

 

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The asshole was waiting for them. He’d expected their ambush all along and broughtbackup, that’s why he was so easy to track down. Haise feels an idiot for not realizing it sooner.

He was forced to split from his squad in the chaos of the battle, and he’s worried sick that they would get in trouble. Teamwork and caution aren’t some of their best skills, after all.

He dodges the bullets an ukaku type sends his way and braids his kagune into a shield which would allow him to get closer. His quinque stabs the ghoul in his wing and she cries in pain, immediately knockedout cold. Haise doesn’t have to check on her vitals to know that he’s only knocked her out. That’ll do. No more bloodshed than necessary.  He’s seen too much of it already, and it’s not even dawn.

He wipes away the sweat that’s slipping from his forehead and takes the left as his enhanced hearing lets him know that a very familiar stride is running that way.

Hide, he realises, and he runs. That’s where Headless was headed.

No, this can’t be happening, he panics, and his mind goes blank.

What’s he thinking? He’s not one for one-on-one fights, he said so himself! He’ll get himself killed! He can’t fight can't  _can’t can’t_ or else he’ll d–

_No_.

Not Hide.

Not him,  _too_.

Haise’s too worked up by the thought of his friend’s life being in danger to notice the slip of his consciousness.

Blood’s pumping painfully fast in his veins and he can feel the blood lust raising in his mind’s eyes, rc cell screaming in his ringing ears and bubbling in his back and the desire to kill  _kill kill whatever gets in the way_ – and his knees are weak, he can’t run faster, he can hear his joints cracking beneath his fastened pace and he’s restless, panicked, and this can’t be happening  _please let it not be happening_ for all that’s holy and sacred and he thinks he’s crying, what are those tears for, and he cracks his knuckles with a sickening sound that reminds him of flesh beneath his teeth and blood pooling from his mouth and for a moment his nails flash black but then it’s red red red because he turns around a corner and all he can see is blood. Too much blood. It’s everywhere and he can’t possibly ignore it because  _it can’t be it can’t be there’s no way it is_

It’s Hide’s.

He screams.

His minds goes into override and he’s overwhelmed by the coppery smell that is everywhere,   _his bestfriend’s smell is everywhere_ , and that can’t be true it just can’t can’t can’t because that’d mean he’s dying and he can’t bearthe thought of letting him die, of failing him beyond salvation, of being left behi–

He sees it happening as if in slow motion.

His black sclera follows the arc Hide’s head is drawing in blood in the wide, open space of the room and Haise’s mind explodes in white noise as his blood thirst raises to its ultimate level, leaving him as the shadow of his past self, and he doesn’t mind the numbness he can feel rapidly fading all his senses as everything else turns to black together with the closest friend he’s ever had.

  


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He’s crying.

  


He doesn’t know who ‘he’ is.

Nothing’s got a shape, here, there’s only a blur of emotions, splotches of red, of yellow, brown and green. Of black, like oblivion.

He wonders if this is what death feels like. Emotions you can no longer live plastered all around your abstract being like splashes and scratchesand wounds of colors.

He wonders if his soul, too, has its own color. He wonders how dark it is.

The sobbing voice doesn’t stop.  It’s getting annoying. Not having a body, just floating around in the nothingness is getting annoying. This is probably a Limbo.

He never deserved Heaven, that much he’d known, but at least he had hoped to be delivered in hell. That would have meant he still had a destination, a purpose, be it damnation and repentance for his own sins. Something to devote his existence to.

That eternal Limbo is something he just can’t stand. He would go mad. It would remind him of his failure, not giving him the possibility to make up for it or redeem his selfish and weak being.

_It’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault_

What?

_Whose_ fault?”

He doesn’t know.

He wants to know. That’s why he finally answers those sobs.

He wakes up.

  
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He has tears streaming down his face, too.

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Haise is still dreaming. He is in the Limbo, he tells himself, except now things have a proper shape and are back again to their usual 3D-ness. But they still make no sense to him.

There is a guy who’s sobbing in the crook of his neck and he can’t see his face, and haise says so. His voice comes out hoarse and raspy as if he’d been screaming at the top of his lungs for the past twenty-two years of his life. He guesses that’s not that far away from the truth.

Hide’s face then comes into view, still very much attached to the rest of his body, and he realizes with an overwhelming relief and a lump in his throat that he reminds it. And he reminds his own identity, too.

His smile is strained and comes out more like a grimace, but it’s there nonetheless.

Hide smiles, too, and tears don’t look good on Sunshine’s face, he thinks.

Than all goes back to darkness.

  


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Haise can feel the drugs they put in his veins still flowing in his system. His head hurts like hell and he considers the thought of not opening his eyes, because if this feels any more like an hungover he knows that’s for the best.

He opens them nonetheless and he’s still very shaken up when he realizes that a mop of blond hair with brown roots is face-planting on his hospital bed, probably still asleep, one hand still clutching tightly his. That’s what woke him up, haise realizes. he smiles.

He gently lets go of Hide’s hand to caress those soft and ruffled hair. He’s wanted to do that for a while, now. That gets him a muffled groan in reply, and shortly after the head still very attached to his body turns and gazes up at him. He keeps smiling.

Suddenly Hide is very awake. He’s up and in his arms in a split second, crushing his ribs in a super tight hug that would’ve probably broken him if Haise weren’t a ghoul. He has a naggingfeeling that that’s exactly why Hide isn’t going easy on him. That much for not being a six pack himself, uh. What a nasty little liar. Haise smiles in the crook of Hide's neck and he knows that Hide can feel it too, so he doesn’t stop.

“Man, you had me so worried in there,” Hide says.

He stays silent for a bit.

“Like you’re one to talk,” No one of them lets go of the other. “I was the one who saw your head flying. I’m glad I was only hallucinating.”

A long silence.

“Eh, about that…”

Is that a strain on Hide’s voice?

He raises his head as high as he can, trying to get a glimpse of his face without having to break the embrace. They both need it too much. Hide is the first to break away, though. Good. Haise wouldn’t have the strength to do it himself.

“About that,” says Hide. He considers him a touch too long, before adding: “It wasn’t an hallucination,  _ **Kaneki**_.”

He swallows hard, the name nor his words not lost in him. He takes a deep breath and his gaze falls to the white sheets on his bed, not daring to look up at his bestfriend anymore. He feels the air constricting in his throat, making it hard to breathe.

“I never told you that,  but I made a deal with the CCG, back before I came to find you in the sewers.”

Each word stabs him hard in the chest.

“Guess I should’ve mentioned it earlier, that I’m a ghoul too, now. Well, more like an experiment, actually. Before, you know, you went on a rampage'nall.”

Hide’s voice sounds raw again.

Kaneki realizes it’s all his fault.  _Again_.

_He’s failed him._

He doesn’t notice he’s sobbing grossly until Hide’s arms find his small and fragile body again and rub soothing circles on his back.

Hide has believed in him this whole time, never once leaving his side, and Haise has failed to protect him from this cruel world and his own cruel fate  _from the very beginning_. That’s why The Voice in his head has been this silent,  _guilty_.

He’s crying fat tears because only now he realizes that he and The Voice, no, His Past Self have always had the same goal:  _protecting their loved ones_. Keeping them away from harm.

That’s why he’s left him behind the first time around, he remembers. That’s why he’d thought it would work. But the world was dangerous in itself, and he hadn’t realized that leaving him alone would mean not being with him when he most needed him.

His tears taste like regret and and love and salvation and  _hope_.

He doesn’t know how Hide managed to forgive him, but maybe, just maybe, it’s for the very same reason he did.

_He loves him too much to forget about him_.

 

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This time he won’t ever let him go, no matter how selfish and desperate that sounds, because even though he may have accepted his past self, this world is still very wrong, and looking in Hide's accepting, warm eyes Haise only knows one thing: he’s still a ghoul, the both of them are, but they’re humans in each other’s eyes and that’s what matters.

Together they would make it right.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not nearly as remotely sorry as I should probably be for that unneeded angst towards the ending. I know that deep down all the hidekane shippers are masochists //rip  
> But if you guys want to yell at me for it or discuss tg and share headcanons, feel free to drop by my tumblr and leave an ask! This was my first hidekane fic and also the first work I'm posting here, so any kind of feedback would be really appreciated!


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